As his SPEED UTV brand continues development and increased motorsport activities, Robby Gordon is also getting into the engine building business to support those projects and more. He stated in a live Instagram walkthrough on Friday that he bought Race Engines Plus from Joey Arrington and rebranded it to SPEED Engines, with the goal of building motors for different vehicles like UTVs, quarter midgets, and boats.
Gordon recently moved out of his longtime Robby Gordon Motorsports facility on 10615 Twin Lakes Parkway, Charlotte, North Carolina, to Race Engines Plus’ on 7100 Weddington Road in Concord. The new building was previously the engine shop for Dodge and Gillett Evernham Motorsports, who had an alliance with RGM when Gordon competed in the NASCAR Cup Series, before it was closed in 2009 after GEM became Richard Petty Motorsports (now Legacy Motor Club) and laid off much of the engine staff.
The old shop, which Gordon had owned since 2000, served as his team’s NASCAR and IndyCar headquarters during their run from inception through 2012 followed by being the main hub for his Stadium Super Trucks since 2013. It was where RGM built over 210 cars from scratch across a multitude of disciplines including NASCAR, SST, SCORE, and the Dakar Rally; the surrounding property also has test tracks for SST and other off-road vehicles. The building was purchased by an auto manufacturer, with various wings like the paint booth set for demolition.
RGM also has a base in Anaheim, and Gordon plans to split his time between it and the Concord facilities. Some of the stadium trucks will remain in North Carolina.
“We’ve got some great engines over the years, but now we’re able to build our own stuff from scratch,” said Gordon, who raced with every manufacturer during his NASCAR career. “I think that will be very, very, very good for us and it will allow us to develop better UTVs, btter race cars. Max (Gordon, son) will be in a position that I’ve never been in where we had control over our own engines as well.”
Race Engines Plus was founded in 2011 by Arrington, whose father Buddy was a longtime independent driver in the Cup Series. The younger Arrington, himself a former Cup driver, formed his first engine company Arrington Manufacturing in 2000 to suppport Dodge in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. REP built motors for teams like BK Racing, MBM Motorsports, NEMCO Motorsports, and Tommy Baldwin Racing in the Cup and Xfinity Series; in 2022, Arrington partnered with Dutch GT car engine supplier APP Racing Engines to produce a Toyota Cup Series motor for Team Hezeberg’s #26 car.
